Page 61 of Wicked Knight

“Hey, Mackenzie, come on. Let’s do the halftime cheer,” Belinda Matthews says, catching my attention. She’s the captain.

I give her a sweet smile and join the girls as they line up for the formation.

Out the corner of my eye, I catch Dmitri gazing up at the bleachers.

He’s seen his father, too.

They share a prolonged stare before the whistle blows and his mind is back on the game.

The tension remains, reaching me from all the way over here, and I wonder how things will everything play out.

Deep in my heart I hope next time will come soon, but I fear the risk of the unknown.

The sorority meeting room is a shrine to pink and gold, the kind of over-the-top perfection I like, but tonight, the bright colors make my skin crawl.

It’s barely six, but I just want to watch some reality TV then head to bed.

Seeing Dmitri and his father earlier was hard, and the lack of sleep is taking its toll on me. I’m more exhausted than usual, so a meeting with the presidency is the last thing I want to do, and this isn’t the place I want to be. But here I am. I’m even on time.

I take a seat by the window and gaze out at the rose garden. It looks like a painting in the oncoming sunset.

As the girls file into the meeting room, I allow my mind to drift to Dmitri, replaying our last moments together in my head like a broken record.

My chest tightens at the memory, a mix of longing and fear twisting in my stomach.

I need to stop thinking about him.

It’s not doing me any good. I tell myself that, but I can’t stop my mind from drifting deeper and deeper, focusing only on him.

“Mackenzie.” Tiffany’s harsh voice rips into my thoughts.

My head snaps up, and I realize everyone is staring at me, including Tiffany, our sorority president and reigning queen of all things passive-aggressive.

At the front of the room, her perfectly plucked brow arches in disdain. She’s perched on the edge of the pink velvet chaise with her legs crossed and her perfectly manicured nails drumming against the armrest.

She’s glaring at me as if she asked me a question and is waiting for an answer. Next to her are Eilish and Rebecca, the vice president. The only comforting face I find among them is Eilish.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I mumble, looking back at Tiffany.

“Wow, our first real meeting back, and you think it’s okay to disrespect your president,” Tiffany barks, flipping her glossy black hair over her shoulder.

“No. I was just sidetracked.” I don’t even know why I bother to explain myself. When it comes to her, everything you say is wrong.

Tiffany gives me a Barbie-doll fake smile and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m sure whatever you’re daydreaming about isreallyimportant, but some of us actually care about the reputation of this sorority. If you’re distracted, maybe you shouldn’t even bother coming to meetings.”

I clench my jaw, wanting to tell her to fuck the hell off and go to hell, but I hold back. It’s not worth the trouble. The last time I did what she considered rude, I ended up cleaning the toilets for a month.

In here, she’s the law. An endorsement to her beliefs that she’s God’s gift to mankind and we all revolve around her. She’s a senior this year, so I know she’ll want to leave Raventhorn with a bang. That means being extra, extra mean.

Pushing aside my pride, I decide to keep the peace. “Apologies, my lady,” I use her Knight title and mentally roll my eyes.

She seems to be in more of a mood than usual.

I heard the summer break wasn’t kind to her. First, she got a botched nose job. Then she caught her fiancé cheating on her with her sister at their engagement party.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, someone recorded her fiancé fucking her sister and leaked the video on social media. It went viral.

I have no sympathy for Tiffany. She’s one of the most horrible people I’ve ever met in my life, so I’ll let karma deal with her.

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